We Could Have Been
by LuvStarWars
Summary: You made me an offer that I refused.  Now I wish I had accepted...  Zutara Oneshot


**Author's Notes: Wow, been a while since I've posted a Zutara oneshot. I've kind of missed it...**

**This is actually kind of old, I was just inspired to finish it today. It's what I imagine happening to Katara and Zuko after the A:TLA finale...**

**This oneshot was actually inspired by a long debate JasmineLeilani on deviantART and I had about why Zutara should have won and why Kataang couldn't work. It was a very inspiring conversation, I must say. :D**

**And in case I still have to say it after three years, I do not want any Zutara bashing on this. You don't like it? Don't read it. Go somewhere else.**

****PWEASE REVIEEEEEWWWW~  
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><p>A screaming crowd. A massive chariot decorated by colored streamers and gold filigree. Hours marching through the city streets drowned in praise.<p>

Just another day in the newly liberated Earth Kingdom.

Katara rubbed her temples. They'd arrived in yet another tiny, nameless Earth Kingdom village late the night before and she hadn't gotten much sleep due to the excited crowd outside all impatient to see the Avatar. Now she had a throbbing headache, and the bright sunlight overhead and her fancy hairdo wasn't helping to alleviate her pain much.

_Smile, Katara_, she thought. _This isn't your parade, it's Aang's. You have to be excited for him. You _are_ excited for him. So _show_ it._

"Katara, Katara!"

Katara whirled around at the sound of the young Avatar's voice and forced her biggest, brightest smile. Ugh. Just smiling was painful.

"Why, Aang!" she greeted him. She expected him to give her a 'good morning' kiss, but he sped past her to the window, leaning dangerously out of it at the crowded streets, which immediately exploded with applause at the sight of the Avatar. Aang came back from the window practically glowing.

"Are you excited?" he asked, but apparently it was a rhetorical question because he didn't wait for her to answer before adding, "It's gonna be so much fun! Look how many people there are! And they're all here to see _me_!"

Katara figured he should have been used to it by now. She'd lost count of the villages they'd passed through on their long campaign to Ba Sing Se. She would have preferred flying straight there to see how the people were doing, what with no king and _hopefully_ no Dai Lee there to be in charge and keep order. But who knew, maybe Long Feng had already broken out of prison (again) and seized control. Time was of the essence.

But Aang insisted on stopping in every village to meet with his new adoring fans. And he was the Avatar. His word went, no matter how many times she told him it was important to get to the capitol as quickly as possible.

At first, the constant partying was fun. The first few parades thrilled her, and it was nice, after so long worrying where they would rest their heads and find food to eat, to have a soft bed to sleep in and all-you-can-eat meals spread out before her 24/7. But soon the traveling got old. Hadn't they been traveling nonstop for a year now? Couldn't they take a break, just one? At times she woke up in the morning unsure where she was, and half the time she didn't know the name of the town where they slept.

Then, just as quickly, that became the exact problem. At the rate they were going, they wouldn't reach Ba Sing Se for another several weeks. Aang didn't believe her when she said the Dai Lee could quickly become a problem.

_It's Kyoshi all over again, except 100 times worse…_ she thought. _He sends the Firelord to prison, and suddenly the whole world wants a piece of him, and he's invincible._

Shaking her head, Katara forced these dark thoughts aside. She was just tired and cranky because she hadn't slept well and she was tired of traveling. What she really wanted was to find some quiet, secluded place where she could do a little bending in silence, not go through another deafening parade.

But, again, this parade was for Aang. She should be happy for him.

At that moment, a stuttering and bowing Earth Kingdom man, the mayor of this town, Katara supposed, walked in to their little hotel.

"Ah, mighty Avatar!" he exclaimed, bowing profusely. "Your carriage awaits you, sir!"

Aang practically skipped out the door after two earthbenders who were meant to keep the crowds away, but Katara hesitated. Where was Toph? She hadn't been spotted all day.

_Agh, again!_

For the hundredth time, it seemed, Katara missed her big brother and his necessity for order. Sokka had returned to the Southern Water Tribe with Hakoda and the other men of the tribe to help rebuild. Katara had had the option of going with him, or staying with Aang and Toph, who were to travel to Ba Sing Se to check on things there. After kissing the Avatar, Katara would have felt bad about leaving him to handle his duties alone. But it had been weeks since their little gang had split, and they were still so far from the capitol, and every day Katara felt less and less like the girlfriend of the Avatar and more and more like the baby-sitter for two wild kids who were quickly being swept away in the glory of their new fans. Sokka would have been a huge help if he had come with them. He wouldn't have stood for all the time they were wasting in parades and late-night parties. He would have a schedule all ready for every day of their travels. Aang and Toph might not listen to him (they barely listened to her) but it would have been nice to have someone on her side. Someone more focused on the mission at hand.

Sokka, Suki, Zuko… Any of them would be welcome company.

_Aang would listen to Zuko_, Katara thought with a smile, remembering how the firebender would bark relentlessly at his exhausted pupil during training, pressing him harder, challenging him longer, forcing him to work and work.

Yes, she needed Zuko right now. He would straighten them up and get them back on the road.

Katara sighed. Her head was killing her, but she had to go look for Toph. She hated having either of the young benders out of her sight for very long, especially in these crowds.

So she set out to look.

First she scoured the small apartment where they were staying. She expected to find Toph still fast asleep in her bed, but her room was surprisingly empty. Now really worried, Katara frantically searched the rest of the building, but to no avail. She ran out to where the carriage was waiting (a fantastic vehicle, all decked out in streamers and fluffy cushions, but Katara had seen better) and called up to Aang, who was already perched upon it, waving to his fans, "I can't find Toph anywhere!"

"Huh?"

"I CAN'T FIND TOPH!" Katara bellowed above the noise, as her head felt like it would split.

Aang glanced around half-heartedly. "Well, I'm sure she's around here somewhere," he offered. "Maybe she's planning on making an entrance like last time?"

Katara hadn't thought of this. Several parades ago, Toph had buried herself in the ground, only to explode up in the middle of the parade's path to hysterical screams from the crowd.

"I guess…" she shrugged.

"Huh?" Aang called down from the carriage.

Katara would have yelled back, but she was beginning to feel physically ill. She'd gotten way too much sun the day before. Instead she turned to the mayor, who was clapping ecstatically along with the crowd.

"I'm gonna go ahead and sit this one out," she told him.

He didn't seem to hear her. "Huh?"

"Oh forget it!" Katara snapped, and retreated to her room. She pulled the curtains over the windows, turning the shriek of the crowds into a dull roar, and throwing the room into darkness. Then she gently settled herself onto her mattress and buried her face in her pillow.

I miss you, Sokka. I never thought I'd say it, but I really, really miss you. I miss you Suki. I miss you Zuko…

Not for the first time, Katara wished she'd taken Sokka's offer and gone home. No more traveling. She wanted to go home, or at least go somewhere that she could stay for at least a year. She'd done enough traveling and flying around to last her a lifetime.

It wasn't the only offer of peace and semi-stability she had received. Zuko had asked her to become his foreign advisor, someone who would help him assure the rest of the world that the Fire Nation was no longer a threat and that they could all live in peace. She would only have to travel minimally, mostly just writing letters to officials and attending meetings with said officials to assure them the Fire Nation's new leader was not a threat to the world's security. It was an offer Katara had very seriously considered. But as soon as Aang asked her to come with him and Toph to Ba Sing Se, she knew she would have to refuse him.

He'd seemed very disappointed. More so than necessary.

She had been too.

She still was. But she didn't dare even consider going back and accepting. She had a duty to the Avatar, and besides, no doubt Zuko had found someone else for the job, someone older and more qualified.

"Oh well…" Katara sighed deeply into her pillow. Her headache wasn't easing up, but she was too tired to let pain get in her way. Within a half hour, she was sound asleep.

* * *

><p>Zuko slumped over his desk, exhausted. It had been another long day full of meeting after meeting and massive piles of paperwork. With the last signature signed and the moon high in the sky, he was prepared to sleep at his desk. Again.<p>

Suddenly, he heard a nock at the door of his office. Rubbing his eyes so that they looked less sleepy, he called, "Come in!"

Mai entered. Zuko felt bad for the wave of disappointment that crashed over him. Admittedly, his girlfriend was not the person he wanted to see at the moment.

"Zuko, there you are," she commented dully. "Where have you been all day?"

"I've been working, Mai," Zuko replied. Shouldn't it be obvious? He was Firelord now. He worked.

"Oh…" his girlfriend sighed. Apparently that wasn't the answer she'd been looking for. What answer had she been looking for? Zuko was too tired to fathom it.

After a moment of tense silence on Zuko's side and bored silence on Mai's, she said, "Well, this is boring."

A gross understatement.

Zuko, if he were any less tired, would have felt horrible for how badly he wanted his girlfriend to just leave and let him sleep, but he was way past tired now. He hoped she would get bored enough that she would run off to find something better to do, like complain to her mother. Wasn't that what she did most of the time anyway?

Mai didn't seem to take his silence as a hint.

"Let's go out, Zuko," she moaned. "Let's do… something! Something at least a little interesting."

"I'm sorry Mai," – he wasn't sorry, but it sounded nicer to say he was – "but I'm really tired, and I have an early morning meeting tomorrow. I should really go to bed."

Mai downright scowled at him, her eyes narrowing. "Who are you, Zuko? It's like I don't even know you anymore. Remember the beach? You used to want to go out all the time. But after that little… incident where you ran off with the Avatar's gang, you were different. All 'work this' and 'work that.'"

"There's a lot of work to do, Mai. If you would help me with it, it would go faster and then maybe we could spend some time together and 'go out' like you keep asking to do," Zuko said, the irritation growing in his voice. Run off with the Avatar's gang? Was that really how she remembered it? Because, to him, he had been following his destiny, discovering what he had been meant to do all along after struggling so long with his past and what other people wanted of him, _saving his people from self-destruction_. Run off with the Avatar's gang indeed…

"No way, I'm not burying my nose in boring paperwork all day," Mai sighed, waving her manicured hand at him dismissively.

Zuko stood. "I'm tired," he said simply, for fear he might say something else, and stepped around Mai to the door. He didn't look back until he'd reached the safety of his room and shut the door behind him. He collapsed onto his bed, not bothering to change out of his stiff Firelord robes.

If only one of his friends were here, one of the people he'd helped save the world with. They would understand, sympathize, and even better, help. Sokka, Suki, Toph, Aang… Katara. He missed them all more than he could express to them in his letters. In their short time together as allies, they had become a family, the first real family he'd had in years. Now they were gone, far away. It might be years before he saw any of them. The thought was too awful to bear.

_Katara could have stayed…_ No, that was stupid. She was the Avatar's girlfriend now, she belonged with Aang. Still he thought about how nice it would have been to have her helping him. She was so responsible, dependable, and wise. He could rely on her, and surely she would have been happy… She'd looked happy when he'd first offered.

She'd looked crushed when she'd had to refuse, for Aang's sake. No doubt Zuko had looked crushed as well, because he'd realized-

Zuko cringed. He didn't dare go there. He had a girlfriend, though he still didn't understand how that had happened. They'd broken up, hadn't they? Why did Mai even come back? Didn't she hate him for leaving her? Didn't she hate the life of constant responsibility and work that came with being a political figure? Why was she still here? Zuko wished, not for the first time, that she would just leave, that she would call the 'thing' they'd had months ago overwith. Gone and dead. But she seemed determined to live in the past, a past Zuko was trying hard every single day to forget.

Though he was exhausted, Zuko found himself too miserable after these musings to sleep. He could reply back to Katara's letter, he'd had time earlier to get to everyone's but hers. But what would he say?

He wouldn't complain to her. That would be immature, and if she was having problems of her own, hardly helpful. But he wouldn't lie to her and say everything was perfect in the life of the Firelord either.

In the end, three words and three words alone made their way out of his pen. He sent the letter and collapsed wearily into bed.

* * *

><p>Katara woke up the next morning in a different room than the one she had fallen asleep in the morning before to the squawking of a dragon hawk sitting in the windowsill. Exhausted, but with a much lighter headache, she retrieved a letter from the hawk. It had the seal of the Firelord on it. She tore it open hastily and started unrolling the scroll.<p>

For one confused second as she unfurled it she thought the parchment was blank. But as she reached the end Zuko's neat script met her eyes. Three words.

_I miss you._

Maybe she was still overly tired and confused after waking up yet again in a new town after having a splitting headache, but tears came to Katara's eyes. Instead of wasting a new piece of parchment, she wrote her reply under Zuko's words and returned the scroll to the dragon hawk, sending him on his way. Four words.

_I miss you too._


End file.
